Source: Justin Long, October 18, 2018
Editor’s note: Have you heard it said that Americans spend less money on missions than they do on Halloween costumes for their pets? Justin Long gives us the data.
It’s that time of year again—time for a review of what we spend on Halloween vs. foreign missions. We spend a lot on dog food, and it’s sometimes compared to what we spend on missions (rightly or wrongly). Globally, [Christians] spend about US$48 billion per year on missions (CSGC figure). I suspect that the US, being the largest sender of missionaries, spends the greatest percentage of that amount.
Variously, we estimate about 1% of that amount is spent on the unreached (or about US$480 million, or better phrased as half a billion dollars). Some portion of that is obviously donated by Americans, but we don’t know precisely how much. The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering alone was US$142 million (2017-18).
Americans will, on the other hand, spend about US$480 million on Halloween costumes for their pets (new 2018 figure). So it does seem that we could legitimately say Americans spend more on Halloween costumes for their pets than they give to foreign missions, for whatever saying that is worth.